Hebrews 11.9-10, 17-23, 32-40

Matthew 1.1-25

Today, God comes forth from the Sanctuary of His Temple as He said He would through His prophets of old, but in a manner far exceeding Israel’s expectations. The prophets searched diligently, inquiring into the sufferings and Glory of the Christ who was to come (1 Pt 1.10). Angels, too, had ‘stooped down’ (Jn 20.5, 1 Pt 1.12) to peer into this Grace of God that was coming; but this mystery of God was hidden from the generations until it was revealed to His saints, the Shepherds, and Wise Men of the East on Christmas Day when the only-begotten God was born of the Virgin in the cave and, having become flesh from Her, He ‘pitched the Tabernacle of His Body’ among us (Jn 1.14), and His disciples beheld His Glory; and they have borne witness that this is the Glory of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth.’ [Jhn 1:14]

The Temple of the Last Day (cf. Eze chptrs 40ff), it turns out, is not built of stone by the hands of men. It is the Living Temple of the Holy Virgin, built by God from the seed of Abraham’s faith, built from all the generations of Abraham (which includes both Israelites and Gentiles!), even going back to Adam, until it was finished from the flesh and blood of Joachim and Anna as the Living Temple of the Most Beloved and Most Holy Virgin Mary Theotokos. She is the real Temple of Israel of whom the Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple of Solomon were but copies!

And, the real Sanctuary of the Temple, as it turns out, is not found in the Temple that is outside of us in Jerusalem, so that one must pick up and travel from here to there to find it. The Sanctuary is the sacred womb of the Virgin Mary, the New Eve. And, it is the mystery found in our own heart within us. The Most Beloved Panagia is the real Eve, the real ‘Mother of Life’ in the real Garden of Paradise, the Church. And the Child sown in Her womb, not by man but by God, is the real Tree of Life, of which the Law of Moses was but the shadow! And, the Body of Christ built by God in the womb of the Virgin from Her pure blood is the Heavenly Temple of God (Jn 2.19&21) not built by hands (Heb 9.11). He is the New Adam built by God from the pure blood of the Virgin as Eve, the Mother of Life, was built by God from the rib of Adam; and as the Bride of God, the Church, was built from the blood of God that came forth from the rib of the New Adam when He was pierced by a spear on the Cross (Jn 19.34).

But angels and men were not the only ones who trembled with amazement to see a woman, the most holy Virgin, giving birth to the Son of God as the Son of Man. The Most Blessed and Most Beloved Virgin Panagia Herself could not comprehend it. The wonder She expresses to Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation – ‘How can this be? I have not known a man!’ (Lk 1.34)  – remains undiminished on Christmas Day. As a new Mother having just given birth painlessly, Her virginity wholly intact, She looks on the pre-eternal God now Her own Child who had taken flesh from Her as Her First-Born and Only-Begotten Son. She holds Him in Her arms and without ceasing, She kisses Him and worships Him. Filled with joy, She whispers softly to Him: ‘How wast Thou sown as Seed in me? How hast Thou grown within me, O my Deliverer and my God? O sweetest Child, how shall I feed Thee who gives food to all? How shall I hold Thee who holds all things in Thy power? I cannot understand the mystery of Thy poverty without measure. For the smallest of caves finds room for Thee within itself.’ (Festal Menaion, pp. 200, 202, 216)

But, let’s not presume to explain how ‘the smallest of caves finds room for God within itself’ from our own understanding. Let’s give ear to the holy fathers of the Church and let them teach us the meaning of the Virgin’s prayer: ‘Our intellect (the organ of perception and knowledge, the most essential part of our nature),’ says St Kallistos, ‘is like a place that receives the radiance of divine revelation [it is like the Cave that receives the Radiance of the Glory of Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God, the Radiance of the Father’s Glory (Wisd 7.25, Heb 1.3)]. The peculiar nature of our intellect is a marvel and works opposite to what we see in physical space. The more area a physical space covers, the more it can hold. But with the intellect it is the other way around. The more the intellect draws itself in in [the] concentration [of prayer in the way of the Church], the more it can receive, and when it limits and ceases all movement, rational or noetic or whatever else, it is then that it perceives what is great beyond all things; it beholds God. These are no idle fancies,’ St Kallistos continues, ‘nor are they simply our own thoughts conjured up as in a dream, but by the ineffable power of the grace of the Holy Spirit, the heart receives a transformation beyond nature.’ (Philo V, p. 168)

Remember the word we have quoted from St Kallistos before: ‘Historical events are mirrors of spiritual realities.’ The physical cave of Bethlehem is a ‘mirror’ of the human heart. When the Church, then, exhorts us ‘To go in spirit to Bethlehem, and with the eyes of our soul to look upon the Virgin as She hastens to the cave to give birth to God, the LORD of all,’ (FM 201), She is exhorting us to prayer in the way of the Church: descending with our intellect into the cave, the sanctuary, of our heart. In the words of St Isaac of Nineveh: ‘be diligent to enter into the treasury that is within you (cf. Mt 6.6), and you will see the treasury of Heaven; for these are one and the same, and with one entry you will behold them both. The Ladder of the Kingdom is within you, hidden in your soul. Plunge deeply within yourself [Let us go in spirit to Bethlehem], away from sin [leave the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life behind and enter the Cave where the LORD is born of the Holy Virgin, in order to follow Him into the Tomb of His Resurrection] and there, in the spiritual depths of your own heart, you will find steps by which you may ascend.’ (Hom 2)

Again, from St Kallistos: ‘These are no idle fancies, nor are they mere thoughts conjured up as in a dream.’ This mystery is real, and it can be found for this is the Mystery of God that was hidden from the ages, but that has now been revealed to those who love Him; it is the Mystery of Christ within you (Col 1.27), God the Son born in the flesh of the Holy Virgin deep in the Cave of your heart.

Perhaps you noted how our daily scripture lessons this week have been preparing us for Christmas. We have been directed to study Psalm 94/95 with the Epistle to the Hebrews as our teacher. ‘Today,’ it says, ‘if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion in the wilderness (Ex 17.1-7). For this generation always is wandering off in its heart, and does not know My ways.’ (Heb 4.7-8)

Who is this that comes forth from the Virgin in the Cave on Christmas Day? It is Jesus Christ; He is the Gate who would open to us the Green Pastures of Eden! (Jn 10.7) But why must the Christ be born of the Holy Virgin to lead us back to Eden? What is Christmas all about, Charlie Brown?

Let the Psalmist tell us. Our King from of old comes to us as a newborn Babe born of the Virgin in the flesh in the Cave of Bethlehem to enter the Cave of our heart and to work His salvation in the midst of the earth of our own flesh and blood (Ps 74.12), to destroy our death by His death (Heb 2.15), to roll away the stone from our heart and to create in us a new heart, and to raise us from our grave to lead us by His Cross into that better City (Eze 37.10-12, Jer 17.5/9) that is within us (Lk 17.21), whose builder and maker is God (Heb 11.10&16), to make us children of God, partakers of Christ who Himself became a partaker of our own flesh and blood (Heb 2.14), and communicants of His own divine nature (2 Pt 1.4) as He became a communicant of ours. And this union with God He grants to us not in theory or in imagination but in the flesh and blood reality of His Holy Virgin Mother, and in the concrete reality of the Holy Mysteries of His Church, rooted in Holy Eucharist, the Mystery of Christ’s Body that was crucified, buried, risen and glorified given to us as our Manna from Heaven, that we might be glorified and deified in Christ.

Therefore, St Paul urges us, be vigilant lest there be in you an evil and faithless heart and you fall away from the Living God. But be vigilant in prayer daily so that none of you is hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the Root of our Faith (that is our love for the Holy Virgin Theotokos and Her Child, Jesus Christ, Our Deliverer and Our God) firmly to the end (Heb 3.12-14). Therefore, hold in your hearts daily the tender image of Christmas. Let the image of the Mother holding Her Child and of the Child holding His Mother soften our hearts and open them onto the joy of the Feast, to receive Christ in the deep of our heart and to worship Him and to rise up in the power of His Cross to follow Him with Abel and Enoch and Noah, with Abraham and Sarah, with Moses, with Rahab the harlot, Gideon, Barach, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel and the prophets and all the rest – including the holy infant martyrs slaughtered by Herod! – to the Sabbath Rest of Our Savior’s Holy Pascha and into His Heavenly City  whose builder and maker is God in His Heavenly Kingdom that is now, from the days of John the Baptist (Mt 11.12), within us. Amen!